Of course, you won't be able to dothis gig right if your ego crashes thestudio party. A good bassist is a masterat bridging the sonic, rhythmic,and musical gaps between the guitarand the drums, so it's far from a signof weakness to assume he or she isspot on.

We'll also assume that it's obvious your mic selection will influence the sound of the track, as will the use of high pass filters built into many mics themselves (technically still an equalizer). But aside from all that, here are some additional ways to shape your sound without EQ.

To create the perfect funk bass tone, you must have all of the necessary elements at hand—a funk playing style, good bass-miking technique, and a fat and funky approach to the mix. These elements all cascade together into one warm, mammoth funkosaurus bass sound that will bump speakers off their stands. Here’s how to get down with the low down.

Most amp sims include octave dividers. I've successfully used octave dividers on bass with IK MultimediaAmpliTube 2, Waves GTR Solo (Figure1) and GTR3, Native Instruments GuitarRig 3 (Figure 2), Line 6 POD Farm,and Peavey ReValver Mk III. There's not a lot of difference among these particular effects; they all do the job.You can also use the other available modules to condition the bass signal.